Sunday 26 June 2011

Russian Cavalry ready for paint...

Strelets have done it again with this excellent set of cavalry-these figures have loads of character and I cant wait to start painting and gaming with them. Its been a strange week, running my eldest son to lancaster to see him off to Geneva....uni has certainly been good to him! I am hoping to get some normality back by the end of the month and get some serious painting and terrain building in.

My WW2 project has stuttered to a halt so I will either pack it away or ebay it/swap it. Does anyone know who makes resin (or cheap) modern vehicles in 20mm? I was hoping that Hat would be producing the usual two kits in a box by now. Maybe we could talk them into making technicals or Humvees?

here are a few pics of my workbench, the cars are finished so my first scenario of my campaign will be a go soon enough.



Saturday 25 June 2011

Single life !

Hi Chaps,
its been a momentus week-not the loss of another girlfriend but because my blog popped 10 000 hits, thank you all! I have just returned from another weekend in Preston and that means a visit to the model shop this time I purchased Strelets WW1 Cossacks. Currently I have 8 (one company for my games) ready to be sprayed black, they are based and PVA'd and three of the lances have been replaced by brass rod, the only difficulty has been keeping the riders on their horses. Speaking of horses its been a long time since I painted any nags so it should be interesting.

On the painting front I have almost completed two cars and a couple of scratch built houses....some Turkish infantry are based and await paint. I will post some pictures tomorrow. without realising it I have almost two complete forces for a "Back of Beyond" type game! In order to ever start my 1938 campaign I have been on the lookout for some Linka moulds to create some terraced housing, I remember using these moulds as a kid for my train set layout-I should have kept the moulds as they are £10 each.




I have included some pics from Lancaster museum and the model shop at Preston....I dont know why but the chap always gives me 10% off at this shop (it also does mail order) which is pretty cool, my son and daughter are in this pic. The other pictures are taken at Lancaster museum, I know I am getting old as that stair lift looked ever so tempting.

Thanks for visiting, I am sure that one day I will bump into some of you at a game show.

Tuesday 14 June 2011

Some painting

I have almost completed three companies of troops, one Indian and two Askari. Although they are for use in my 1938 game I have as far as possible painted them as they would have looked in their own period setting, this way I can use them for their correct period.
These have had a quick paint job then a wash of GW brown wash...the bases need some finishing as does the Askari officer and NCO in one of the companies. I rather like the Indian HMG crew as they blend in so I will begin work tonight on an Indian gun crew!
A few hours spare this afternoon saw the start of two more Indian/desert houses....looking forward to painting the staff car tonight-lifes good with plenty of cheap 20mm figures!





Sorry about the photo quality, I only have my desk lamp-more of an effort will be made when I actually play a game. Thanks for looking.

Friday 10 June 2011

Solo Campaign

Hi,

I would like the opinion of other gamers as too how they would "police" the Furness area in a 1938 type of situation? Given that the Royalist/Government forces would have the local police force and a battalion of troops from the colonies I would like to know how they would be deployed? What would be the priority of the commander? Obviously the ship yard and the Vickers gun producer would have to be protected...and the lines of communication to ship the goods out...

Whoever thought of this game should get a wargames Oscar! I can field all sorts of troops and guns that are easy and fun to paint-plus I can wander around Barrow and wonder how it would have been secured!

Any help would be most welcome!

Hat-plastic or rubber?

Hi All,

I have just bought the Hat set of Colonial Indian figures (8203) and I am very pleased with the sculpts as they are similar to the colonial German but these figures seemed to be moulded out of rubber? The Germans are so hard and brittle they could almost have been cast in glass! Oh well at £4.25 I am not going to complain....indeed the range of plastic figures is now amazing-next on the list is a box of artillery and some Russian cavalry.

Has anyone ever run a solo campaign? I have read a couple of books in the past but any tips or links would be useful! As blogger is still not letting me join any more blogs or even leave comments my email is carlulverston@hotmail.co.uk thanks chaps.

This random pic is of a medieval church tower...its in Stavely near my home town, apparantly the church (built around 1380) suffered from damp so it was demolished in the 18th century, for some reason they left the tower standing. Maybe useful for anyone scratch building...

Saturday 4 June 2011

A busy week!

I had to pick Chitra up from Manchester airport so nipped into Trains and things at Preston...came out clutching two boxes of Hat figures. The German colonial box (excellent sculpts) and a box of Turks (too slender).

I also started to scratch build a police station-I want to make it as generic as possible so its a bit bland, hopefully it will work for any outpost from the 20s onwards.